BENGHAZI, Libya (Reuters) – Rebels fighting to topple Muammar Gaddafi scorned reports of secret talks with the Libyan leader on Monday as their forces fought to secure gains and the United States said Gaddafi's days were numbered.
After 41 years of supreme power in his oil-rich desert state 69-year-old Gaddafi was isolated in the capital Tripoli, with reinvigorated rebel forces closing in from the West and South.
Libya's rebel National Transitional Council (NTC), recognized by many of the NATO nations whose air power is supporting their assault, denied any kind of negotiation with Gaddafi to resolve the six-month-old conflict.
"The NTC would like to affirm that there are no negotiations either direct or indirect with the Gaddafi regime or with the special envoy of the United Nations," said NTC leader Mustafa Abdel Jalil.
Gaddafi must step down and leave Libya, he said. "It is unthinkable to hold any negotiations or talks that disregard this basic principle."
In Washington, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Gaddafi's forces had been thrown back onto the defensive, and reports that a senior figure in the Libyan security apparatus had defected indicated the regime was cracking.
"Gaddafi's forces are weakened and this latest defection is another example of how weak they've gotten," Panetta said.
"I think the sense is that Gaddafi's days are numbered," Panetta said at event with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Rebels fighting to topple Gaddafi seized two strategic towns near Tripoli over the past two days, cutting the city off from its supply lines and leaving the Libyan leader with a dwindling set of options if he is to stay in power.
However, pro-Gaddafi forces were mounting a fight-back in one of those towns, Zawiyah, west of Tripoli. Snipers concealed in tall buildings were picking off rebel fighters, and salvos of Russian-made Grad rockets landed in the town.
OBSOLETE
The Scud missile, an obsolete Soviet-era weapon, was fired on Sunday morning from near Sirte, Gaddafi's now isolated home town 500 km (310.7 miles) east of Tripoli.
It exploded to the east between the rebel-held towns of Brega and Ajdabiyah, said a U.S. official. The missile came down in the desert, injuring no one, said the official, who was speaking on condition of anonymity.
There was no immediate comment from Tripoli.
Analysts said using the inaccurate Scud look like an act of desperation. "It's an obvious sign that the regime's back is to the wall," said Shashank Joshi, Associate Fellow at Britain's Royal United Services Institute.
Scuds have a range of about 185 miles. At rebel headquarters in Benghazi, officials said it was probably aimed at rebel forces near Ajdabiyah.
"Gaddafi troops are using his last gun. He's crazy," said Mohammad Zawawi, media director for rebel forces. "We're scared he'll use chemicals. That's why we're trying to end this war and we hope to end it with the least number of casualties."
"We can't prevent the Scuds but we hope NATO can. NATO has the technology to detect them."
Analysts say the rebel strategy is to isolate Tripoli and hope the government collapses, but they say it is also possible Gaddafi will opt to stage a last-ditch fight for the capital.
In a barely audible telephone call to state television in the early hours of Monday, Gaddafi called on his followers to liberate Libya from rebels and their NATO supporters.
"Get ready for the fight ... The blood of martyrs is fuel for the battlefield," he said.
REBEL PUSH
As he spoke rebels were making their most dramatic advances in months of fighting, shifting the momentum in a conflict that had been largely static and was testing the patience of NATO.
Rebel forces southwest of Tripoli surged forward at the weekend to enter Zawiyah about 50 km (30 miles) west of Tripoli straddling the main highway linking the capital to Tunisia.
A day later, they said they had taken the crossroads town of Garyan, which controls the highway south from Tripoli linking it to Sabha, a Gaddafi stronghold deep in the desert.
"Gaddafi has been isolated. He has been cut off from the outside world," a rebel spokesman from the Western Mountains, called Abdulrahman, told Reuters by telephone.
Tripoli officials deny the rebels control Zawiyah, and say their forces are preparing to drive "armed gangs" from Garyan.
Rebels on the outskirts of Zawiyah said most of Gaddafi's forces had pulled out of the town, but left behind snipers who made it dangerous for the anti-Gaddafi fighters to move around.
A Reuters reporter saw a rebel pick-up truck deliver six government soldiers to a makeshift prison. Each was blindfolded and made to kneel facing a wall and several rebels walked by, shouting at them and slapping them on the head.
"They were firing at us," said Abdel-Muiz Ramadan, 20, a rebel fighter. "We captured one of them and he gave us the location of the others."
He said the snipers were concentrated in tall buildings around Martyrs' Square, focus of a failed revolt by Zawiyah residents earlier this year. "Every time we approach the area, one of their snipers fires at us," said Ramadan.
Medical workers at one of the town's hospitals said 20 people, a mixture of rebel fighters and civilians, were killed on Monday, and the death toll for Tuesday had reached one.
A U.N. peace envoy in neighbouring Tunisia, Abdel Elah al-Khatib, said he knew nothing of any negotiations in Djerba.
He said he had held informal talks with representatives of Gaddafi's government and the rebel council but did not say who they were or what they discussed.
Talks could signal the endgame of a civil war that has drawn in the NATO alliance and emerged as one of the bloodiest confrontations in the wave of unrest sweeping the Arab world.
Rebels may still lack the manpower for an all-out assault on Tripoli, but are hoping their encirclement of the capital will bring down Gaddafi's government or inspire an uprising. In the past, however, they have frequently failed to hold gains, and a fightback by Gaddafi troops could yet force them back.
(Additional reporting by Michael Georgy in Zawiyah, Libya, Phil Stewart in Washington, Missy Ryan in Tripoli, Ulf Laessing in Ras Jdir, Tunisia, Hamid Ould Ahmed in Algiers and William Maclean in London; Writing by Christian Lowe and Douglas Hamilton; Editing by Jon Boyle)
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